Somewhere I Have Never Traveled
by Lyrael
Summary: Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience... grammatically unsound dabblings in what could happen with Grissom and Sara. GSR.


**Somewhere I Have Never Traveled**

A fanfiction by Lyrael

**

* * *

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond  
any experience,your eyes have their silence:  
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,  
or which i cannot touch because they are too near**

_Please,_ she said quietly, her breath muffled in his neck. He loved that sound. The sound she made when she was close, oh so close and willing to do anything, anything at all to feel the high…

_Beautiful, _he whispered, hearing the words tumbling past his lips and smiling gently, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards. Oh but she was. Her dark hair spread in a fan around her face, her dark eyes so lucidly mirror-like that he could stare into them forever and his own reflection was all he could ever see. A thin sheen of sweat spread over her forehead; he kissed her there and she moaned again, and it made him shiver despite the heat of the room.

It hadn't always been like this but he was liking it immensely: he liked to indulge in her, as a whole, because she made him complete inside of himself. She was sweet, addictive, like rare candy and expensive cigarettes, rolled into one and dusted with powdered sugar, and vaguely he wondered how they'd ever lived apart.

_Oh,_ she gasped. Their surroundings dropped away and quickly the focus dimmed until they could only feel each other through the blindness of interaction. The windows were open and a cool breeze drifted in but they neither cared nor noticed – wrapped up in one another as always, loving one another. The cycle had finally stopped turning around and around incessantly in the bitter wind and he was hers; she was his.

Pressure, insanity and those vocalizations… _I love you,_ she said, when it was all done and they were on the ground again, slow touches and kissing like they hadn't seen each other in days, months, years; it was all so like a dream and yet it was real, and he reached down and pinched his thigh to remember that for the last year they'd been together and he was hers; she was his.

_I love you too,_ he sighed softly, warmly, letting his breath touch her ear and cheek. She touched his face and he leaned into it gently. He'd let her in, into his presence and into his own soul and there was no trace of any regret: finally happy he thought, before realizing that she was already asleep and he was still entertaining thoughts. He dropped a kiss in her hair before closing his eyes, but her face pleasantly haunted his dreams.

He saw Sara, and he loved her.

**your slightest look easily will unclose me  
though i have closed myself as fingers,  
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens  
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose**

Close to the end of night shift… she was feeling rather tired today.

She always stared at him when he wasn't looking. So she repeated her ritual today and trained her gaze on him – he was standing in the hallway discussing something with Nick and Warrick, his back to her. Handsome, she thought. Intelligent, enigmatic, beautiful… she stared at her hands and wondered; distracted from her processing or her testing or whatever she was working with now. Distracting too, she added, pursing her lips and smiling sadly. Doesn't really reciprocate. Probably not in love with you. But feelings still linger? Why?

Crush? No. So much more than that. Love? Perhaps, she thought, moving her hands again, fighting the distractions. Her mind always did this – distracted her, made her think of him in ways that she couldn't help, but ways that she loved anyway. She could feel pressure in her chest and wondered if it was ever possible to die from strong emotions.

Some scientific studies proved that once, didn't they? She rolled the question over and over in her mind, but the emotion studied had been grief, broken-heartedness – she wasn't broken-hearted, not in her mind at least.

Preoccupied more so than anything, she nodded to herself, carrying on with her work. He was always so closed to her, not willing to let her in most times. She'd felt tension in their friendship – why so tense Gil? she wondered. Why so hidden? I'm here for you. Relax… you might like the normal life…

But she couldn't really speak without being a hypocrite; since when had her life been simple and normal? Not since childhood, when she'd been forced to grow up too fast for her own good and had suffered in silence from the murder.

_Have anything new?_ he asked, silently appearing like always, moving behind her like shadows. She updated him, gave him the details that he wanted to hear, and expected him to leave quietly like he always did.

Instead he stood next to her, touching his elbow to her forearm, silently asking to see what she saw through the microscope lens. She moved aside – oh, he smelled like soap and faintly of sweat, maybe a trace of cologne but she couldn't be sure – and watched him turn the knobs this way and that, focusing and fiddling. His fingers deft and quick – she suddenly felt her breath catch and the floor fall out from under her. He always managed to do this to her, to make her breathless without even reaching for her.

She shot out a hand for support from the table and he noticed. She cursed herself – shit! – on the inside, feeling her cheeks flush a bit pink, or was it a lot? and he was curious.

_Sara?_ He queried, quirking his right brow – oh so cute – and swiveling his blue gaze towards her, the irises stormy with something she couldn't quite decipher; she decided, after staring into them for a moment, she wouldn't try to figure out what it was. All she knew was that it left her oh-so-pleasantly happy inside and she didn't know why that was. She felt lighter than she had during months and months of anguish and frustration and self-pity, and she could only stare at him with her mouth slightly agape and her shoulders bunched up into taut springs.

Gil scratched his beard, straightening but never letting his eyes fall from her face. He looked a slight bit apprehensive but that confusing emotion in his eyes failed to leave and she wanted to reach out and fall into him, like she would into a dark pool, and never come out again.

_I don't want to be too late,_ he said quietly. _The explosion during the Gordon case a few months ago… What happened with Nicky… it made me think, Sara. I… don't want to be too late. Not now. I don't think I could take it._

She wanted to be angry and violent and argumentative but she couldn't bring those emotions up, she couldn't drag them from their cages because the only thing she could feel was her love… for him.

He was silent but he reached out and caught a hold of her hand. He grazed his thumb over her fingers and she met his gaze and was astounded at the intensity. He squeezed gently, and put his other hand in his pants pocket, taking a step closer to her. It occurred to her that the door was open and anyone could walk in to see an inappropriate encounter between boss and subordinate, but she pushed that aside when his eyes peered into hers.

_Sara,_ he said softly, even his touch making her feel crazy. _Sara,_ he repeated, _we need to talk. As soon as possible. _

She nodded nearly imperceptibly and wondered if the pinpricks behind her eyes were tears in the making. She couldn't really tell at the moment but she didn't want them there. Was it really happening? Was he finally going to do something about 'this', that ugly symbolic word that had stood in for what they felt towards each other? She knew he cared for her more than he liked to admit, but she never knew to what extent. It was mind-boggling but she wanted it to go on.

_Shift's almost over,_ she heard herself volunteer. _Want to do breakfast afterwards?_ Her voice sounded almost unreal to her own ears, but she couldn't take it back.

He watched her for a moment and removed his other hand from his pocket, reaching up and gently touching the side of her face.

_Yes,_ he replied. She could detect relief and something that sounded like happiness in his low voice and let out a trembling breath.

She felt nothing but happiness then.

**or if your wish be to close me,i and  
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,  
as when the heart of this flower imagines  
the snow carefully everywhere descending;**

_Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are? _he asked her nonchalantly. They sat in his living room on Christmas Day with books in their laps and mugs of hot cocoa not far out of reach, and she looked at him with a surprised expression. He grinned inwardly – almost six months and she was still surprised at things.

_Once or twice,_ she responded, tilting her head at him and letting a smile touch her lips. It was one of those really amazing smiles that she kept filed away just for him, the ones that could knock the air clean out of his chest and make everything better even on a bad day. The sunlight filtered in through the blinds and he never let his gaze fall away. He loved her imperfections, especially the diastema that made her look like an overenthusiastic child when she grinned really wide. She'd whistled through it a few times much to his amusement and he'd kissed her quiet with a smile on his face – she had just laughed and covered her lips while her cheeks turned pink.

He felt like a love-struck teenager at times but it didn't matter. They had their lives and their experiences but this was all so new to both of them – they couldn't quite understand every nuance and every little detail but they made it work and it was working quite wonderfully. They were professional at work and loving at home behind the private doors of her apartment and his townhouse, where they could truly be themselves.

They'd had petty arguments over stupid things but they'd always resolved themselves in the morning, or whenever they chose to resolve themselves. He ran a hand through his hair and let out a soft sigh – she had gone back to skimming the pages of her book and a beam of sunlight had poked itself through the blinds to illuminate her hair.

He closed the book and set it on the table, pulling himself off his section of the couch and moving to stand in front of her. She glanced up at him, smiling, and her eyes were dark with curiosity.

_Merry Christmas,_ he said quietly, letting a smile touch his own lips.

_God bless us, everyone,_ she replied with a smirk, before glancing down to her book again, her hair falling in her face and obscuring her features.

_Dickens,_ he said, and she put the book down and looked up at him again. They stayed like that for a little more than four or five minutes, simply looking at each other, his posture a bit slumped and her neck craning to look at his face.

_Do you want your gift?_ she asked with a hint of mirth in her voice and he knew she was hiding something fun behind those eyes of hers, so he put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her closer, kissing her.

_Gift?_ he said breathlessly after they parted for a moment. She laughed quietly and it reminded him of sleigh bells – she crossed her arms in front of her and pulled off her shirt.

_Me,_ she said simply, and he kissed her again but a little harder; she yielded to him and wrapped her arms about his waist, clenching the fabric of his shirt tightly with her fingers, and he lost himself in her softness – before he realized it they had gotten back into his bedroom and Christmas Day had an irreplaceable memory instilled upon it for him.

He watched her after they'd made love and she did the same, clutching the sheets to her chest and smiling his smile, the one that he never wanted to forget.

Before he closed his eyes to sleep he was thinking long and hard about everything. He was sorry that he had stayed closed to her, closed off to the world and everything she'd offered in the past.

But he was mostly glad that she hadn't closed to him.

**nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals  
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture  
compels me with the color of its countries,  
rendering death and forever with each breathing**

_I didn't think I'd ever witness this moment,_ she said after a few minutes, her eyes sad but her body tense. She was standing in front of a drawer in a morgue that was some distance from the lab, but she couldn't really remember how they'd gotten there and how long it had taken. He was standing behind her, his hand on her hip and his presence largely comforting, but she was still feeling achy in her soul.

Her mother, dead, was in the drawer, toe tag and all, with no expression and frizzy gray hair floating around her slack face. The white sheet over her body was stained with blood from the rough-looking y-incision, the black stitches glaring against the pale skin.

_Sara,_ he whispered, his voice almost lost to the rotating fans of the venting system. She felt him tighten his hold on her, but somewhere she knew that he was well aware of her ability to handle the situation.

She took a step away from him and his hand dropped from her side, but she kneeled next to the drawer and stared at her mother. Her mom's face was lined, and deep, dark circles underscored her eyes. Sara thought that maybe she should cry but the ability was lost on her at the moment.

The memories poured back into her mind as she remembered back to that fateful night when her mother had finally taken a knife to her father, using him like some kind of sick pin cushion and the blood had gone everywhere. It had been a long time ago, was it really supposed to stick around that long? She often wondered why it still haunted her to this day, but she chalked it up to trauma and being a young child at the time. Who wouldn't be scared?

Gil stood by her, and she knew he was looking over the body, but she didn't really care. This was the woman she had told him about, the woman who with a few hours had almost single-handedly destroyed her daughter's life and future.

But, she reasoned silently, death takes all of that away. Mom is dead, and she's somewhere else now. She reached out and lightly brushed her mother's hair back, running two fingers down the side of her face and down to her chin.

_Sleep well, Mom,_ she said, still trying to find the tears, but they were lost. She loved her mother but it was a strange, alienated kind of love – it would never really be voluntary, either. Always the instinctive reciprocation of what her mother had felt for her.

They left in silence, her hand in his and she wondered what he thought of her now. She looked up and was startled by the strength and intensity behind his gaze; he'd been watching her, waiting to see if she would say anything to him. Sara stopped walking, and he stopped too.

_I couldn't cry in there, _she explained, trying not to get frustrated. The wind kicked up and stirred her hair around in wisps. _I wanted to get closure, so I did the best way I could… was that wrong?_

He touched her cheek and she found that she couldn't let her eyes fall away from his.

_Is it wrong that I didn't cry, Gil?_ It was then that she felt the tears: frustration and anger and pent-up pain. Her mother had haunted her for so many years and now she was gone, just like that, and mortality laughed. She wanted to think that she should be feeling some sort of huge despair over her mother but she couldn't dredge it up – all that came was the old pain, the old hurting and over this the tears started to form.

_No,_ came his response, quiet and tender like him.

She cried in the parking lot and he hugged her tightly.

**(i do not know what it is about you that closes  
and opens; only something in me understands  
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)  
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands**

_That was an interesting dinner,_ he remarked with a tight smile. She glanced at him and tilted her head back and laughed – the look in his eyes softened when she did that but he said nothing. This was all still new to him; their third date had just ended in somewhat of an amusing disaster but not so bad that it would discourage further outings. It was the kind of disaster that people looked back on with happiness and sometimes minor embarrassment but it served a purpose in building something between two human beings.

The night was rather warm still and the heavy clouds covered the nearly full moon, and they exited the restaurant with a comfortable quietness between them. Sometime later Gil would wonder why Cath and Warrick had shown up at the restaurant but he really didn't pay attention to it now. He was too busy watching Sara and observing, taking in the body language that he knew so well and thinking of how the tips of her ears had turned pink when Warrick had called her name.

His eyes traveled a little lower to the soft v-neck tank top that she was wearing; it was a little transparent but showed off the right curves and made her look positively stunning and he felt himself grow warm inside. There was a silent understanding between the two of them that no one else would ever be able to completely understand and he was proud of that; he was proud that people couldn't truly see their mutual attraction because that made it all the more special.

As usual he remained quiet but Sara was laughing about Warrick and Cath and their wide-eyed surprise at dinner. She was wondering aloud how long it would take for them to actually forget the whole thing when Gil felt a few drops of rain on his face and blinked towards the night sky.

_Rain,_ she murmured beside him, winding her arm around his and standing close to him. The drops grew more frequent and they both glanced at each other as the sky ripped open and dumped buckets of water on Las Vegas – when it rained in Vegas, it rained and it rained hard.

He heard her excited shriek through the pattering rain and they bolted towards his Denali; it didn't matter how fast they ran, though. They were completely soaked to the bone when they made it to his car and he was fumbling with the keys in his pocket.

_Wait,_ she said, her mouth open with laughter and her eyes twinkling through her rain-plastered hair. _Just wait._

So he waited and they stood in tense silence for a moment, the rain splashing down around them, and suddenly he felt a desire to kiss her, just to taste her lips in the rain. He took a step forward and she looked at him with large eyes, and raindrops clung to her lashes. He cupped her cheeks in his warm hands, brushing drops away from beneath her eyes.

_Kiss me,_ she said, so he did. His lips brushed hers and sealed the rainwater between them for a brief moment, and then it deepened and he was sliding his tongue between her lips, tasting her, and she was wrapping her arms around his neck, winding her fingers through his damp curls.

They parted after a long minute and he smiled, resting his forehead against hers. Her eyes were dark and playful when he next looked at her and he couldn't remember ever being this drawn to anyone. The rain was drizzling now. He slid his hands lightly down her wet, bare arms and took a hold of her hands, her soft hands and held them up in between them.

_(I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands,_ he whispered to her, kissing each hand and watching her eyes grow wider as she smiled at him.

_Cummings,_ she whispered back, and then the rain stopped, and mist rose off the streets into the cool air. She took his right hand and pressed it to his chest right above his heart, her hand over his, and he could feel his own heartbeat.

_Somewhere I have never traveled,_ she said with hope and sadness in her voice.

He looked at her and leaned in to claim her lips again, and when he pulled back he pulled her into a tight hug.

_You've been there since I met you,_ he replied, and she laid her head on his chest and they stood together for a long time.

**

* * *

Author's Notes:** First attempt at CSI fanfic. Laughs It's mostly focused on GSR though, could you tell? Anyway… the poem used in this fic is "somewhere i have never travelled" by E. E. Cummings, one of my favorite poets. I read this poem for the first time a few days ago and it just struck me as very… Grissom/Sara themed. So… I incorporated it… Yes, the timeline does skip around quite a bit, but this is just my own… interpretation on how things might go between them should Grissom come to realize everything. Tell me what you think, just don't be too harsh.


End file.
